Entry 4: Gettier Problem

The Gettier Problem really isn’t a problem per say but rather a challenge to the long held belief of knowledge. A belief which suggests that for one to have knowledge one must have ‘justified true believe’ [JTB]. Gettier demonstrated the problem of ‘luck’ within this tripartite theory and in so doing demonstrated that ‘true belief,’ does not necessarily mean knowledge. The Gettier Problem or issues made famous by philosopher Edmund Gettier seeked a better definition of knowledge. Since then there have been several failed attempts at deciphering the mysteries of what constitute knowledge such as: the ‘Tracking Theory of Knowledge’ an attempt at solving the Gettier Problems; my least favourite since it seemed to only offer a system by which truth may be tracked and not even an attempt at a definition for knowledge. There has also been a ‘revision’ of JTB by simply adding one or several conditions; however as eloquently refuted by Linda Zagzebski’s 1994 paper ‘The Inescapable Gettier Problems,’ the every title of which speaks for itself she states ‘that simply adding a variable to the JTB proposition, JTB + X where X is a condition or list of conditions which are independent from justification, truth and belief would be susceptible to Gettier-style counterexamples.’ I couldn’t agree more.